"How The Light Gets In" by Louise Penny. *****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2013
• #9 in the Inspector Gamache series
• Interview between author and narrator at end of the audiobook
• Review:  Absolutely riveting!  If you have not already done so, just go back to the first Inspector Gamache installment!   Hurry!  Fantastic series full of wisdom, compassion, and mystery!

"Clarissa" by Samuel Richardson *****

• Summer Sub Club read with Beth
• Originally published in 1743, 1499 pages
• English author
•  Vocabulary:
• asseveration:   an emphatic assertion
• contumacious:   stubbornly perverse or rebellious; willfully and obstinately disobedient
• fleer:  to grin or laugh coarsely or mockingly
• rhodomontade:  vain and empty boasting
• causist:   a person who supports or defends a cause, especially a social cause
• pelf:  money or wealth, especially when regarded with contempt or acquired by reprehensible means
• gorget:   a crescent-shaped ornament worn on a chain around the neck as a badge of rank by officers in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• gantlope:   gauntlet
• caitiff:   a base, despicable person
• Quotes:
• p.49...."...whom we fear more than love we are not far from hating."
• p.55....."...those who want the fewest earthly blessings most regret that they want any."
• p.55...."Say what they will of generosity being a manly virtue, but; upon my word, my dear, I have ever yet observed that it is not to be met with in that sex one time in ten that it is to be found in ours."
• p.68...."So let them fret on, grumble and grudge, and accumulate; and wondering what ails them that they have not happiness when they have riches, think the cause is want of more; and so go on heaping up till Death, as greedy an accumulator as themselves, gathers them into his garner!"
• p.69..."The person who will bear much shall have much to bear all the world through....".
• p.77...."///a man who has sons brings up chickens for his own table.....whereas daughters are chickens brought up for the tables of other men."
• p.333...."Strange that we seem all to be impelled, as it were, by a perverse fate which none of us are able to resist?"...not sure I buy this
• p.345..."How one step brings on another with this encroaching sex!  How soon may a young creature who gives a man the last encouragement be carried beyond her intentions, and out of her own power".....too true, but for young men also I think
• p.419..."Nevertheless, to recur; I cannot but observe that these tame spirits stand a poor chance in a fairly offensive war with such as of us mad fellows as are above all law, and scorn to skulk behind the hypocritical screen of reputation.".....ouch but for the pain my displeasure gives him."....where I come from we call this rationalization!
• p.487..."He has a joy when I am pleased with him that he would not know
• p.487...Pecking order...."All the animals in the creation are more or less n a state of hostility with each other.  The wolf, that runs away from a lion, will devour a lamb the next moment."
• p.519..."As gold is tried by fire and virtue by temptation; so is sterling wit by opposition."...like this
• p.557...."We begin with birds as boys, and as men go on to ladies; and both perhaps, in turns, experience our sportive cruelty."....Lovelace regarding expectation that Clarissa will eventually not struggle against him but eventually aim to please her captor, like a captured bird....YUCK!  Now I begin to detest him
• p.To you, great gods! I make my last appeal; Or clear my virtues, or my crimes reveal.  If wand'ring in the maze of life I run, And backward tread the steps I sought to shun, Impute my errors to your own decree; My feet are guilty; but my HEART is free."....Clarissa, miserable in her circumstances
• p.573....."Women indeed, make better sovereigns than men: but why is that?--Because women sovereigns are governed by men; the men sovereigns by women."...Good Grief!
• Notes:
•  Truly began detesting Lovelace after his reprobate friends urged him to give up his farce, and he remonstrates them and continues
• Lovelace proposes annually renewable marriage.....comparing marriages to flowers of which some are annuals and others perennials....very entertaining....p.872
• p.891...Clarissa's notion that what Lovelace did was in his nature and what Clarissa had done was not of her nature so perhaps she was truly to blame ...how many people chose to be with another person for their occasional glimmers of goodness while ignoring their pattern of primary badness?
• p.894...Clarissa considers a madhouse preferable to being with Lovelace
• Review:   It says a lot that out of the 1499 pages of this novel, I only though the last 100 superfluous.  If you like melodrama you will adore this novel.  Completely comprised of letters between the characters, the minutiae of their psychological/spiritual motivations are enumerated beautifully. The characters are everything here.  Clarissa, the virtuous maiden, Lovelace, the villain, and a host of both true-hearted and villainous minor players inhabit these pages.  I absolutely loved this, with the exception that I think the ending was unnecessarily drawn out.

"We Need New Names" by NoViolet Bulawayo. *****

• Audiobook
• Zimbabwean author
• Originally published in 2013
• Review:  NoViolet Bulawayo's debut novel is remarkable.  How?  It is timely and timeless.  Her writing is eloquent, yet straightforward.  Her prose is both lyrical and stark.  And to top it off, there are some very witty passages.  Told through the eyes of Darling, the reader experiences a child's view of life in Zimbabwe and then in the United States.  The illusion of America and its reality makes the reader cringe.  The losses which accompany emigration are myriad and profoundly moving.  This is a marvelous novel!

"A Walk Across The Sun" by Corbin Addison ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published in 2011
• US author
• Review:   Basically this is the story of redemption and salvation, although not in the traditional sense of those words.  This story moves from Washington, D.C. to Mumbai to Paris to Atlanta and back to Mumbai.  That is the physical journey.  However the spiritual and personal journeys of the characters is even more dramatic and transformational.  Two sisters caught up in the tsunami of a few years ago get thrown into the world of human trafficking.  Their faith keeps them going once they are separated.  A couple who has lost a child end up separated.  How do the two pairs reunite and what does it take for that to happen?  It takes faith, perseverance, and honesty.  Not always easy to  consistently conjure up under extreme stress.  So, I will not divulge the details, but will just say that the plot and characters had me interested right from the beginning.  If the view of trafficking is at all realistic, I am even more disgusted by it now than prior to reading the book.  An engaging, informative and thought-provoking book.

"Sleepless" by Charlie Huston ****

• Audiobook
• Originally published 2010
• US author
• Review:  Dark, disturbing, yet gripping!  Imagine never sleeping again, then slowly deteriorating cognitively until death.  Well, the planet is plagued by this disorder of the sleepless in Huston's tale of the demise of the human race.  Accidental contagion?  Deliverate sabotage gone awry?  Turns out it really doesn't matter, because we are doomed anyway.  What remains?  Love and compassion.  This is a novel for the stout-hearted only!